Pages

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Mitt Romney declares class warfare against poor and near-poor

Others have already done a good job of reporting and
analyzing the latest manifestation of Mitt Romney’s foot-in-mouth disease, aka
his declaration of class warfare against the poor and near-poor that he
recently made in front of a group of wealthy donors.

For those who have been visiting Jupiter or Mars, here is
the kernel of his remarks:

“There are 47 percent of the
people who will vote for the president no matter what… All right, there are 47
percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that
they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for
them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing,
to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it
to them….And they're hopeless…I'll never convince them they should take
personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

The 47% figure refers, of course, to the number of American
households that pay no federal income tax.

Journalists have rightfully jumped all over the Mittman. DavidWeigel analyzed the statement in detail in Slate,
pointing out the several conflations, e.g., assuming that the 47% who don’t pay
income taxes are all on welfare. As Weigel, National Public Radio and others have already written, the 47%
includes most senior citizens receiving Social Security and military personnel. Many
have remembered to say that those in the “47%” pay Social Security and Medicare
taxes, plus state, local and sales tax. Most journalists from all points of the
political spectrum have discussed how bad Romney looks in this latest dust-up.
Some have even dared to utter the words “class warfare,” a phrase usually
proffered by arch conservatives opposed to returning tax rates for the wealthy
to what they were before the Bush II temporary cuts.

There’s not much more I can add to the discussion that’s
new, but I did want to take a look at those in the 47% who are not part of the
military or seniors on Social Security: those whose taxable income after
deductions is lower than the threshold for paying federal income taxes. To
state the obvious—they don’t pay taxes
because their income is too low!

Who are these people?

They serve you in fast food restaurants and they sweep your
floors. They’re the cashiers in supermarkets and Wal-Mart. They may be fixing
your roof or parking your car. They change your bedpan in the hospital. They
may be on the assembly line of non-unionized companies. A lot of
twenty-somethings with college diplomas and no job prospects are in this group.

The crime here is not that these good, hardworking people
don’t pay income taxes, but that they earn so little money that after tax
credits they fall under the threshold for paying taxes.

Be it senior citizens who have worked and paid into the
Social Security system for decades, the honorable men and women we send off to
risk their lives often in meaningless wars or the poor and near-poor, these
people do not deserve the angry and offensive criticism of Romney and the
Tea-partiers. These people are neither “hopeless,” nor do they refuse to take
“personal responsibility for their lives,” as Mitt put it. Blaming the victim
is an old game for right-wingers. That a candidate for the presidency is
playing it is shameful and shocking.

I’m going to end by going out on a limb and stating
unequivocally that when those sympathetic to Romney’s view close their eyes and
conjure an image of the 47% of the population who they believe are sucking
society dry, all they see is black and brown. Like “food stamp president,”
“47%” is a racial code word for African-Americans and Hispanics. They won’t say
it, because they don’t have to.That’s
the beauty—and the ugliness—of code words.

If it weren’t for the entertainment value, I’d be pleased that Texas Governor Rick Perry is foundering in the Republican presidential race. After all, Governor Perry, who is in an unprecedented fourth term as chief executive of the nation's second-largest state, still might get the Republican nomination for president. If that happens there’s no telling what the voters might be fooled into doing. Just look at how far George W. Bush got.